Imagine a technology where pushing a few buttons allows you to create thousands of parts and products, seemingly out of thin air, and in just a few hours.

CHRISTINA TATU

Imagine a technology where pushing a few buttons allows you to create thousands of parts and products, seemingly out of thin air, and in just a few hours.

It sounds like science fiction, but additive manufacturing is here in the Poconos, and local and national leaders are hoping the growing technology will revive manufacturing in the United States.

"The sky is the limit here," said James Granahan, a Monroe Career & Technical Institute instructor, as he demonstrated the school's latest addition to its computerized machine technology program.

Thanks to a state grant, which funded half the cost, the Bartonsville vocational school was able to purchase a $24,000 additive manufacturing machine.

Also known as "3-D printing," the process involves making a three-dimensional solid object using a digital model created by special software on the computer.

The information is then transferred to the printer, which uses small beads of thermoplastic material that form layers as the material hardens.

Filaments of plastic are fed through a special nozzle that's heated at 600 degrees. The materials are deposited in layers as fine as 0.04 mm thick, and the part is built from the bottom up — one layer at a time.

Since MCTI acquired the machine in September, students have built objects ranging from a skeletal model of the human hand, to a new door latch for the school's washing machine and a replacement part for a discontinued meat grinder.

This process gained a national spotlight recently when President Obama cited additive manufacturing in his State of the Union address.

"Last year, we created our first manufacturing innovation institute in Youngstown, Ohio," Obama said. "A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the-art lab where new workers are mastering the 3-D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything."

The technology has been around for at least 15 years, but it's getting cheaper and becoming more widely used, Granahan said.

Additive printing was used mostly for prototyping, but better quality machines are now able to produce a usable end product.

"It's a done deal when it comes out — you don't have to do anything to it," Granahan said, showing off a water bottle opener students made.

Simple objects, like the bottle opener, can be finished in as little as 20 minutes. More complex items, such as a model of a V8 engine with many moving parts, can take up to 16 hours.

The process is good for creating single parts, but for mass production, old-fashioned manufacturing procedures are still more effective because they require less time to create thousands of parts.

As additive manufacturing continues to improve, it's also finding a place in the medical field.